Al-Ameen College eNewsletter

Principals Message

Rana Al-Baghdadi
PRINCIPAL

We had a lovely end to term 1 with a great gathering with families and staff at the 2023 Al-Ameen Community Iftar. We were honoured to host iftar for over 1500 guests as we strengthened the bonds within our community. This Iftar was sponsored and served by our wonderful Parents, friends and staff members and their families, coming together seeking the pleasure of Allah (swt).

I strongly believe in the need to work closely with our parents, without this partnership our efforts are not as effective. We encourage the close and constant communication with parents and this term invited parents for an early Parent – teacher conference where over 400 families attended alhamduliAllah.

At the start of this term, I ran several information sessions to update our families about our priorities and strategies for 2023, as we work towards achieving our school vision. I spoke to our high school students about having a mindset built towards excellence. This is achieved with fierce resolve and extreme humility. I asked them to look at the start of each new term as an opportunity. Even better, to see each day as a new beginning and face challenges with strength and perseverance.

We believe that the best way we can support our students is to expose them to as many different experiences which will challenge them as much as possible; experiences in which they may fail at first, but through which we can support them to grow. We have been working particularly close our year 12 students and their families, ensuring their last year of high school is a great success.

This year we are developing a strong data plan to identify gaps in learning and understanding, to seek ways in supporting each individual student. Our teachers are taking on a new journey, incorporating a change in methodology and teaching practice to enhance lesson delivery which creates greater impact in learning.

I am pleased to announce that the first Al-Ameen College Annual Report 2022-23 has been prepared and can be accessed via the link below. Please take some time to read through the pages to read about the many achievements in 2022 and our upcoming plans for 2023.

To keep informed about our regular events, please follow us on Facebook on our official Al-Ameen College page, Al-Ameen College Facebook Page.

As Ramadan quickly heads into it’s final last 10 days, I ask Allah (swt) to accept your fasting and worship. May He guide our youth to that which pleases Him, grant them righteousness and elevate their status in this dunya and the akhira.

Keep us in your prayers and we look forward to welcoming our students back to school for Term 2, Wednesday 26 April 2023.

Annual_Report_22_23_1_.pdf

Assistant Principal - Teaching and Learning

It is my pleasure to introduce myself as the new Assistant Principal of Teaching and Learning at Al- Ameen College.

My passion centres around the holistic development of each student in a safe and supportive environment with the support of parents, staff and the College community. I pride myself on my ability to empower others through inclusive decision making and creating structures in the school to give people the opportunity to grow and develop.

As the new Assistant Principal of Al-Ameen College, my goal is to maintain the successful practices and culture of the College and lead the College into the future with a continued focus on high-quality teaching and learning. In planning to achieve the vision of Al- Ameen College, I believe that the future direction must be an unrelenting focus on a culture of learning, quality teaching through the commonly understood pedagogical framework, the professional development for staff, ongoing capacity building of all of our teachers as instructional leaders and investment in staff development. This focus will not only sustain current achievement but ultimately produce improved student results and a lasting positive impact for every individual student in the areas of intellectual, social, physical, creative and experimental learning.

I look to the future of Al- Ameen College with enthusiasm and positivity as we continue to grow and support the fully established collaborative culture and connections with the wider community. I feel privileged to work in a College with such dedicated and enthusiastic staff and students.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Happy Ramadan and a safe and restful holiday break.

Dr Fincy Patrick
ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL: Teaching and learning - High school

Assistant Principal -Wellbeing & Pastoral Care

The Wellbeing Department is operating out of its new office in J Block and is now more accessible to staff and students. The Wellbeing team is growing and includes male and female Wellbeing Officers and school Counsellor services. We work closely with the teachers, students, learning support department and religious department to address the wellbeing and pastoral care needs of our students.

We prioritise the safety and wellbeing of our school community, and have been involved in:

setting up kiosks to welcome and assist new students on the first of school
assigning buddies for new students and giving them an orientation
requesting new lockers for our high school students with the introduction of BYOD this year
providing home rooms with assigned duty teachers for our graduating class of Year 12
supervising the class allocation process to ensure student wellbeing
introducing wellbeing journals and workbooks for high school students
organising for the election of this year’s Student Council
encouraged our students to join the upcoming GRIP Leadership Conference this week to develop their leadership skills
organising different workshops:

Resilient Teens (Years 7 to 10):
- develop resilience and foster wellbeing in an interactive learning environment
Goal Planning (Years 11 to 12):
- support students in developing their energy and time management goals
- assist students to better understand their mindsets and values
- encourage self-care, self-awareness, and push students towards actioning their goals
Discover You (Years 5 to 6):
- develop student’s sense of self, self-esteem, and self confidence as they approach their transition to High School

At Al-Ameen College, we believe in our students to become the leaders of tomorrow, who will make a positive difference in the world around them, Insha Allah. Our belief is to nurture our student’s potential and develop their courage, confidence, resilience, and akhlaq, and motivate them to lead their lives with ihsan.

We are always here to support the needs of our school community, and wish everyone a blessed Ramadan. May Allah accept from us all, and protect us all, Ameen.

Manal Jneid
ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL: PASTORAL CARE

Student Council Candidates

Primary School - Coordinator

Assalamu Alaykum Warahmutallahi wa Barakatu

Alhamdulillah! We have arrived at the end of term 1 with also commencing the beautiful, blessed month of Ramadan. Indeed, it was a busy term looking at the calendar filled with interesting events. We started the term with KK-Y6 meet the Teacher and stationery Drop off. This eased traffic congestion tremendously on the first day of school and students knew beforehand where their class for 2023 was located.

The Parent Information Session
The Year 1-6 parent information session as conducted by the Principal, Sr Rana, held early in the term was successfully attended by most Primary school Parents. The positive outcome of such sessions highlighted that the Parents could develop a trusting partnership between the school and the home. We also had an orientation session for Early childhood, Kindergarten and Pre-Primary. Early childhood Staff were introduced, and expectations were discussed before the term 1 started. Orientation sessions like these benefit Parents and reduce stress. Kindergarten started a day later which was also welcomed by many Parents and our young students enthusiastically started their learning journey into 2023.

Parent Teacher Conference
The Parent -Teacher Conference held 10^th February 2023 created an early opportunity for the Teacher and Parent to build a solid relationship. This also built a bridge to share academic progress and growth based on classroom observations early in the term. On the other hand, teachers learn from parents about their child’s behaviours, needs and strengths. Thus, a personal connection is made between Teacher and Parent.

NAPLAN (National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy) Years 3 and 5
NAPLAN was successfully conducted with a 100% student participation. Once we receive the results, the data will be analysed and used by teachers to understand strengths and weaknesses. The NAPLAN data gathered will be to plan effective Literacy and Numeracy teaching and learning programs and to track students’ growth over time.

Merit Ward Assemblies
Thank you to the Parents who have attended the Aussie and Mu’min of the month assemblies including Merit certificates. These awards recognise the students' academic achievements and behavioural conduct in class. We congratulate the students who have received these awards in their specific categories.

Our Year 6 Achievements
Our Year 6 Prefects have received their badges early in the term and they were chosen because of their commitment and being a good role model to their peers in their respective classes.

A big thank you to our Year 6 Prefects for doing an excellent job by being on Prayer duty, at the staircase and Friday Prayer.

Congratulations to our Year 6 students who participated in the Science Engineering event arranged by Mr Coleman. Thank you, Mr Coleman for arranging the event and taking the students along with you to the venue.

Last but not least .Thank you to the Primary Staff and Heads of year levels for your hard work and effort in completing a productive term 1!

Have a blessed Ramadan and enjoy the upcoming school holiday with your family.

Mrs Shaamillah Davis
Primary School Coordinator

Full steam ahead in Kindgergarted Red !

Pre-Primary Integrated Investigations

An important aspect of the learning environment is to ensure that children have the opportunity to construct, to create, to explore and investigate in ways that are purposeful. I carefully and strategically set up learning areas that foster and develop skills such as problem solving, thinking critically and creatively to develop a range of skills.

The children will interact with various learning areas such as the science and nature table, tinkering table, construction area, dramatic role play area, collage table, math station and writing workshop.

Carly Rusdu
PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER
ECE Line Leader/Primary School Teacher

Year 1

We would like to thank you for all of your support as the children have settled seamlessly into Year 1. They are now in full swing of life in Year 1 and are coping very well with the new structure of the curriculum and the new routines of the day. We have loved seeing the children’s enthusiasm towards their learning and the smiles on their faces every day, Alhamdulillah. The children have shared their holiday adventures with us and it’s been wonderful to spend the term getting to know our students and their personalities!

ENGLISH
Students will begin the year working in small Guided Reading groups where they will be encouraged to focus on a particular reading skill. Some of these skills include fluency, using expression, chunking, blending sounds, sounding out and many more.

In Literacy this term we will be looking at a range of different texts and using them to develop and support our ideas using the ‘Talk 4 Writing’ approach. We will be writing for a range of different purposes. We will be innovating and writing our own stories and we hope the children enjoy retelling these stories at home. We will also continue to work on handwriting and letter formation. encouraged to expand their vocabulary and follow the correct structure for the given text type.

MATHS
The students will begin the year with a focus on Number and Place Value. They will be engaged in lots of hands-on activities and investigations to encourage their counting and pattern recognition skills. The students will be explicitly taught the mathematical language that is required to understand the concept and skill being presented. They will use number lines to develop their abilities to skip count. Students will focus on the place value of numbers up to 50. Students will be encouraged to investigate and use their problem-solving skills during our weekly Problem-Solving lessons.

HUMANITIES
This term, our Humanities focus is ‘My Life, My Story.’ Students will be exploring their own family and their own story. Students will be delving deeper into their understanding of how they fit into the world. We will be facilitating and encouraging the students to show student agency by asking questions, and developing their skills in seeking their answers independently.

Science
We are exploring Biological Science this term. Students will be Identifying the needs of plants and animals and how where they live provides those needs.

Design & Technology
In our Learning area for Design and Technology we did food source and identifying where it come from. As part of the food production skills, we learnt to put a healthy snack together and made a sandwich.

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Assallamualikum Parents and Guardians,

How quick time flies! We are nearly at the end of Term 1. So far, we have had fun to get to know our students and getting into the swing of things in Year 4.

Talk for Writing

This year we introduced Talk for Writing programs. Students are enjoying writing with clear structured movement from imitation to innovation to independent application which is adapted to suit the needs of the students. The approach moves from dependence towards independence, with the teacher using shared and guided teaching to develop the ability in children to write creatively and powerfully.

Student Council

Masha’Allah to the students that put their hands up and prepared a speech which was presented in front of all the Year 4 students.

Ramadan

Students are preparing our classes for Ramadan Decoration, one of our Year 4 classes is making a batik art using washable glue and fabric paint.

Diana Bromell
PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER
Upper Primary Line Lead

Year 5

The first few weeks with Year 5 Blue were very busy, with students settling into their new year level. Now that the children are settled, the classroom routine has been established well and learning is occurring wonderfully.

This year, NAPLAN started early with assessments running formally in Week 7 and 8. It was fantastic to see my students putting in a lot of hard work and keeping up with all of the revision. I am so proud of my students and their resilience and persistence! Well done everyone, you should be proud of your efforts. I am hoping to see some good results!

We had our Year 5 School Councillor election held in week 7 and the winners will be announced soon. The students showed a very positive attitude and were highly motivated. They had a great chance to showcase their talents and leadership skills. Congratulations to all of those who took part in the election and presented amazing speeches.

As we are approaching Ramadan, Year 5 Blue is extremely excited, and we are fully engaged in preparing a beautiful Ramadan display for our classroom. The students have been so creative in making beautiful lanterns for the display, which will be showcased soon as Ramadan begins.

I am very happy and proud of Year 5 Blue’s efforts so far this term, and I wish all the students and families a blessed Ramadan and holidays.

Year 6

As our year 6 students have entered their final year of primary education, we have started the year by stepping up to our roles as leaders of primary school. Our Prefects were selected to lead their peers by example for their respectful, responsible and mature traits. All our year 6 students whether they have an ‘official’ leadership position or not have a responsibility to live up to their roles as student leaders simply because they are the oldest cohort. In addition, throughout the year we will be focusing on preparing for high school by being independent and responsible learners.

At the beginning of the term, we had a fabulous workshop by an AISWA representative who showed us some exciting things we can do with KodeKlix to suppurt our STEM learning. The students were very engaged and eager to start exploring the combination of electronics and coding.

In our biological science unit, we have been finding out how the growth and survival of living things are affected by the physical conditions of their environment. We investigated how different methods of watering affect plant growth and health, how different concentrations of saltwater affect living things, and observing the growth fungi of bread mould in different conditions.

Year 7 - 10 HASS News!

This term Year 7 to year 10 were studying History in HASS. Students worked in a group of 3 on a topic of their choice. The year 7 chose a topic on Ancient Civilization and present to the class the ‘key features’ of that society. They used PowerPoint to do the presentation on any one of these topics.

Year 9 had to choose from a historical event from the 1750 to 1918 as world has experienced most significant and important historical event during these years. Their task was to investigate one such historical event, and create a visual presentation that focuses on one key historical event.

Everyone has completed their presentation competently. They showed their hard work, enthusiasm, and confidence in presentation. I am very proud of my students as they enjoyed researching and presenting the topics in the class very professionally.

Nasreen Ahmed
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER

Year 7 HASS News!

This term we have been studying ancient civilisations: ancient Egypt, ancient China etc. After completing the theory and the content from the Western Australian Curriculum and completed the units of the syllabus, students had an opportunity to demonstrate their learning in a fun and practical way.

Students were placed into groups representing different civilizations and they had to deliver a brief talk on the key features and achievements of their respective civilisation which they have studied and researched.

In addition, since one of the units of focus covered in the syllabus is the Chinese civilisation, the students created terracotta warriors. They had to strictly follow the recipe from the year seven Skills and Activities Book. The result was a perfect consistency of the dough after which they embarked upon creating the body parts of the terracotta warriors and assembled the body parts as a team. This activity was also great for working collaboratively to construct new knowledge.

This ‘hands-on’ task also generated a lot of excitement in the classroom as they worked collaboratively to create their masterpiece! There was tremendous fun enjoyed by all, while engaging in learning curriculum content. History and the curriculum were brought to life in the classroom. This was a memorable learning experience for the students, and it was thoroughly enjoyed by all. The remarked, “this is awesome!”.

Muhammad Agherdien
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER
HASS

Year 7-10 English News!

Salutations,

Another exciting year has just begun InshAllah! This term the Year 7 and 9 students have been preparing for NAPLAN through in class activities and assessments as well as using Excel Test Zone. NAPLAN has run well with student devices and headphones, Allhamdillah. Year 10 students have been learning about autobiographies, students have designed vision boards and written some autobiographical texts of their own. Some of the images provided are of Year 10 students’ wonderful work. Year 8 students have been engaged in learning about infographics and the environment, please also see some of their fabulous work in the images provided.

We have also completed OLNA round one this term (Year 11 and 12), Year 10 students will have their first round in term two, (please see the table below for all test dates). Students that are required to sit OLNA, have a subscription to olna.com.au. All students have been provided with usernames and passwords; we hope they are making use of this great resource.

That’s all for now, more exciting English studies are awaiting in Term 2, InshAllah.

Ramadan Kareem and Kind Regards,

Kholoud Swayd
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER
English HOLA

My New Gallery

Ping Pong Pickup Engineering Challenge

Year 10 STEM Elective students are challenged to design a device that can pick up a ping pong ball at a distance and bring the ball back over the starting line. Students used engineering design, problem-solving, and troubleshooting skills to design, build, and test their Ping Pong Pickup devices. Once they had a working design, they continued to improve the device to increase its reach. Students also explored simple machines and various mechanisms as they build their device. They applied knowledge about material properties like mass, stiffness, and friction, and used that knowledge to make informed decisions about how they build their device.

Fincy Patrick
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER
Head of Learning Area: Science

Year 11 - Heart Dissection!

The heart is one of the most important organs in the human body. It continually pumps blood around the body through our arteries, capillaries and veins. It supplies the cells of our body with necessary oxygen and nutrients for the cells to function properly. The Year 11 Human Biology General students dissected sheep heart in the laboratory, looking closely at the heart chambers, valves and blood vessels.

Mr Mohamed Conteh
HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER

Year 7-10 Maths News!

Year 7-12 Form classes!

Form can be an exciting moment when students interact, learn, motivate, and form bonds with one another. Here are activities Year 10 Red run on most Fridays to ensure we continue to grow and develop our social, physical and intellectual skills.

Year 12 - Psychology!

The Year 12s this year created models of the brain to present to the class in line with the first chapter of their textbook, Biological Influences/ Bases Behaviour, in which they studied the nervous system and of course, the brain. The assignment involved creating a brain model and labelling the different areas of it, then presenting it to the class. The project was in pairs with each person making half the brain. During class time, groups took turns presenting the brain models they had created, accompanied by PowerPoints, teaching their fellow classmates about the functioning of this organ.

For the students, it was a very different assignment. They had utilised their creative potential using various materials including clay, plasticine and playdough transporting us back to primary school. Some considered this enjoyable and a breath of fresh air, while others deemed it mildly stress inducing. Like all assignments, they raced to place the finishing touches on the models and presentations into the early hours of the morning. In the end, everyone had worked very hard to create impressive models earning them all passing grades. All in all, an interesting experience and an assignment that’ll be remembered long after high school.

Written by Madeeha, Year 12 Psychology ATAR

Year 11 & 12 - Curtin UniReady!

Enabling Program 2023

Al-Ameen College endeavours to provide an alternative university entry pathway for our Year 11 and 12 students by offering the UniReady Enabling Program (Schools) auspiced by Curtin University. The focus of this program is to prepare students academically for higher education.

Upon completion of the UniReady Program, students are awarded a notional ATAR of 70 which can then be used to satisfy the entry criteria for a range of degrees at Curtin University and other universities.

In Year 11, students need to complete 2 core units each semester: Fundamentals of Academic Writing as well as Foundations of Communication.

In Year 12, students will be completing 2 electives: Applying Mathematics and Introduction to Commerce. This term, they are working on topics like Algebra Equations, Linear Functions, Exponential Functions and Analysing Data.

Students and staff can effectively access the Curtin Blackboard learning management system for all the resources and for submissions of their assessments.

We look forward to bringing our UniReady students on a campus tour to Curtin University in Bentley in Term 2 to help them find out more about the courses offered as well as toexperience what campus life is.

We hope our students enjoy this course and we wish them all success in this program!

Below is a snapshot of a day in the UniReady classroom where students work collaboratively on the Blackboard online platform for each topic.

Ms Jo-Anne Mathews
UniReady Program Lead Teacher

Student Counselling & Support

“How to manage your time properly to be more productive is a skill to avoid feeling stressed.

Time management helps you find the time for all you want and need to do. It helps you decide which things are urgent and which can wait.

In helping our Y12 students Inshaa Allah to reach their potential, our Y12 students attended a workshop about “Steps to study success and stress & time management” conducted by our school counsellor Mrs. Dahlia El Gammel.

May Allah swt grant our students success and happiness. Ameen”

Dahlia El Gammel
SCHOOL COUNSELOR

Al-Ameen Gazette ISSUE 1 | 2023